Creating a new course

Courses are the lessons within the MySchool application. They are attached to a subject on a class level. Students become students when they are enrolled in a class, or a course. Teachers inherit their roles when they are attached to a class and/or course. Have a look at this video which explains how to add a course.

Where can you access courses?

The easiest way to manage courses is via the Administer menu header and select Courses. You will be presented with the appropriate course list view. This is attached to the permissions found in the course/subject section of user groups. 

To edit the schedule tab, then administrators/super users/SLTs or Curriculum heads may need to edit the course timetable permission. 

Creating a new course

You can create courses via the quick links menu, by selecting the plus icon, and searching for Course. You can also create courses from the list view in administer module header/courses.

There are four main roles needed for course management. Create, delete, and the edit should be restricted to the Superuser or main admin group. View courses is more widely used as Educators and other groups may need to view only. 

Adding a new course

The mandatory fields for creating a course are the name and the subject to which it is attached, the red asterisk denotes these. You will be asked to save the course if you switch tabs to the schedule tab. In the participant tab, you can enrol Teachers and students on the course. 

NB: The delete button is to delete the course, students enrolment data, attendance and assignment/assessment data will also be deleted. Please warn users not to delete unless they are 100%. In some cases, we may not be able to recover this data.

Name/Subject/Year

Name the course, and make it distinctive so that it can be identified on pick lists. For example, the subject would be English 1, with the course being titled English 1.1. Choose the subject from the drop-down list. You can use the same name for the subject and course if you only have one course attached to the subject.

Courses can not be created unless they are attached to a subject. To find out more about subject management then have a look at this article here.

Students can be enrolled on courses outside of their class level if the term group is the same. We do not advise enrolling students into courses outside of their school level.

Each course is created within the current academic year, if you are creating for next year then change the year drop-down.

Nb: If there are no future years in the list, you can add these in year management. Check that you have permission in your user group to add these.

Include in reports/transcript

This indicates whether you would like the course to be included in your assessment reports and transcript. in certain cases, this can be deactivated for publishing periods, but don't forget to reactivate if you need them for the end-of-year report for example.

Credit/Periods/Capacity

The optional details can be added if your school uses a credit system. Credits can be used in assessment reports and transcripts. If you have populated the subject with a credit value this will be shown in each attached course. Period settings and capacity are information fields only and do not control scheduling or capacity.

5. Description

You can enter a description of the course for Teacher guidance. This description will be shown to students and guardians via the course diary and VLE resource page. You can include images and hyperlinks to give access to external sources

Add Teachers

Choose to add main and secondary teachers to the course. The people picker will appear and you can find individuals by using the search field and selecting from the drop-down list. There is no difference between main and secondary teacher roles. 

Using people picker to enroll students

Open the student tab, and select set students. You can select student groups from previous years by changing the year field. This is useful when processing rollover, as you can pick a group of students from English 10 and enrol them into English 11 for the next year.

Either select the population manually by using the search field, or search a specific course or class.

You can get a complete list of classes and courses by further expanding the selection after choosing a school level.

Select the target and these are added to the selection column to the right. You can add as many selection groups as needed.

Hit save and they will be added to the course with the course enrolment dates set in the config tab. You can amend them individually if there are late starters.

Course Schedule

Courses are used in attendance, and they are essential for your schedule. 

When scheduling courses manually, you can set the default room. This will appear on the schedules of both the Teacher and the students/guardians. Room management is explained in this article. You can also select which term the courses are scheduled for. The term must be set to is scheduled in the term management feature. Please make sure the course enrolment dates set on the Main info tab are aligned. 

Press Edit to open the schedule. Select an appropriate cell with a Plus icon to place the course. You will be asked to select from the Teachers attributed, or the rooms booked. Select them from the drop-down lists. You will notice that the periods are in line with those created in the current class-level timetable. The days are equally set from this feature. To fully understand how to create a timetable then have a look at this article which explains in detail. Press Save once you have finished.

Ad hoc course lessons

If you wish to follow an irregular schedule, whereby lessons can be scheduled on any day and time and period, then this can be activated for your MySchool system. Speak to our support team if you would like to implement this feature. Attendance will still be recorded within a set period. The lessons will still show on the student's timetable for the appropriate time slot chosen.

Transferring students from course to course

Transferring data for assessments and assignments can only be achieved if the subject is the same for both courses. You can create a transfer from the student tab, by selecting the students with the check box to the left of their name and using the transfer button.

A slide-over appears and you are asked for a target course, transfer date, and whether you would like to delete the previous course enrolment or set them as withdrawn. Check the boxes to include assessments/assignments as well.

If you have selected a course which is not attached to the same subject, an error message will pop up and remove the options.